COCAINE ROUND HER BRAIN

I am on my rest day after a busy week as a casualty officer in an
inner-city hospital. Falls, fractures, epileptic fits, collapses, psychotic
behaviours, head injuries ... young and otherwise fit people attend
casualty after their busy nights out. In many cases recreational use of
drugs is to blame. "Shyness and a low boredom threshold," states Julie
Burchill are incompatible with a drugs-free social life (You're gonna die,
so you might as well live, G2, June 6); you stop using them when, by magic,
you are not surrounded by "bores day and night".

I felt hurt and angry reading this article in an influential newspaper. How
are we going to tackle real problems if they are minimised and made
acceptable? You are bored if you are incapable of walking in a park,
listening to music, painting, writing, reading. The world is too vast, too
interesting, challenging, diverse to be boring. I can understand the
pleasure of a glass of wine; I cannot understand being drunk out of
boredom. The use of drugs is a sad, real and serious problem. Let's try to
tackle the problem, not to make it acceptable.

Fatou Mbow, London

Julie Burchill thinks cocaine is harmless, does she? She must be even
stupider than most of your readers thought. The cocaine-funded civil war in
Colombia kills 20,000 a year and is responsible for 1m Colombians leaving
the country in the last two years.

David Holland, Chislehurst, Kent

So cocaine is responsible for as few as three deaths per year, whereas
alcohol and tobacco claim many thousands of lives. Has it not occurred to
Julie Burchill that this is because many fewer people are habitual users of
cocaine than of alcohol, or has cocaine addled her brain more than she
realises?

Jamie McConnell, Cambridge

Tuesday has long been Education day in the Guardian. This clearly explains
why we were treated to Charlotte Raven's view that anyone who studies
seriously at school is nerdish and perverted, to Julie Burchill's paean to
cocaine (presumably as an alternative to the "dullness" of hard work) and
to Matthew Engel's attack on the apostrophe as too difficult for some and
therefore elitist and obsolete. As an economist, may I offer you a more
obvious way of competing with the Sun? Price works every time.

Peter Daffern, Sunningdale, Berks peter.daffern@culture.gov.uk

Julie Burchill found the only way she could cope with her futile life was
to take cocaine. What I can't understand is why she gave it up.

Tony Stowell, Tetbury, Glos

What a lightweight. No missing teeth, septum or soft palette ...

Mark Serlin, London

Most cocaine users I've met are the dullest, most boring and
personality-free human beings alive, who need drugs to become even vaguely
interesting. A bit like Julie really.

Richard Avis, Ipswich

Julie alert: I think regular Guardian users should be warned, there is some
low grade "Julie" being touted around certain sections of the paper at the
moment. It may give the appearance of top quality stuff, but a quick "toot"
confirms this "Julie" has been cut with some hoary old cliches and a fair
quantity of filler. However, even if taken in full, there should be no
serious after effects save an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Dave Keighron, Bridgwater, Somerset